EU paid Moscow 209 billion dollars for energy since 2022
Commission rejects Russia's 320 billion claim and Trump's 250 billion figure, Arctic LNG route still earns billions under sanctions exemptions
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EU paid $209bn on Russian energy, contradicts Moscow's $320bn claim
euronews.com
The European Commission said on Tuesday that Russia supplied the EU with €197 billion ($209 billion) worth of energy between March 2022 and July 2026 — and rejected as inflated Moscow's claim that the true figure is $320.7 billion. The statement came a day after Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak told state broadcaster Vesti that EU countries had bought that much in Russian energy since 2022, and as the bloc faces gas shortages this winter.
The gap between the two numbers, roughly $112 billion, is its own battlefield. Novak's total covers "supplies" without specifying the commodities included, the valuation methods or the exact period covered; the Commission's count is drawn from COMEXT, Eurostat's official trade database, and covers payments through July. President Donald Trump supplied a third figure — $250 billion, posted on Truth Social to defend his America First approach. Each number serves its teller: Moscow advertises Western dependence, Brussels certifies that sanctions are working, Washington justifies keeping its distance.
Commission spokesperson Anna-Kaisa Itkonen told reporters: "I'm not in the position to confirm other people's numbers. What I can confirm is that we have a clear declining trend of our dependency on Russia from 42%-45% in 2022 to 12% now." By 2023, the Commission says, only six percent of the EU's total fossil fuel expenditure went to Russia.
The Commission also offered a counterfactual: without REPowerEU, the diversification programme launched after Moscow invaded Ukraine, the EU "would have spent €475bn — an additional €278bn on Russian fossil fuels." A claim about money never spent is difficult to audit. The money that was spent is not: Novak said deliveries worth $21.3 billion reached Europe in the first nine months of 2026 alone, and that the Arctic LNG route, operating where sanctions exemptions remain in place, earned Moscow €9.7 billion over the same period.
Novak also pitched Russian diesel exports — including to the United States — as relief for markets squeezed by disruption in the Strait of Hormuz and reduced global refining capacity.
The two sides disagree by about $112 billion. That the payments happened at all is not in dispute.